Preparing for a transaction adds to the CIO's day-to-day responsibilities. The company needs to address technology risks, reduce delays in its operations, and establish whether its data is reliable. Ownership also needs evidence that the technology team can support the next stage of the business.
Explain what ownership needs to know
The CIO should explain whether technology supports the investment plan and which issues could affect diligence. That account needs to cover the company's capabilities, dependencies, and risks, along with the investments underway and evidence of progress.
Start with fragile platforms and constraints on growth. Identify dependencies on individuals or vendors, and check whether the data can support management decisions and diligence requests. Ownership can then judge which investments deserve attention before the transaction.
Build a portfolio view of the work
Technology organizations often present projects one at a time. Before a transaction, leaders need a portfolio view that distinguishes between work that protects value, work that creates value, required operational maintenance, and activity that can wait.
- Protect value: address material resilience, security, compliance, data, and concentration risks.
- Create value: strengthen capabilities tied to growth, margin, integration, or customer performance.
- Increase confidence: improve governance, documentation, reporting, and leadership accountability.
- Defer responsibly: make an explicit decision about lower-value work instead of allowing it to consume the roadmap.
Show the work behind the readiness assessment.
Leadership should be able to explain which issues it is addressing, what has improved, and why it has deferred other work.
Use the 12-to-18-month window
Evidence takes time to accumulate. New governance routines need several cycles to show whether they work, and improving data reliability may require changes to processes and ownership. Reducing a vendor dependency or filling a leadership gap can take longer still.
Starting 12 to 18 months before the expected event gives the company time to make and demonstrate those improvements. The CIO and sponsor can agree on which issues to address before diligence and track progress against that decision.
Prepare the team for diligence
Diligence requests will eventually require architecture diagrams, contracts, security evidence, budgets, roadmaps, policies, and operating metrics. The people responsible for that work need to be able to explain the documents and show how they reflect daily operations.
The CIO should work with business leaders to agree on the material risks, investment priorities, and requirements for the company's next stage. Disagreements need to be resolved before the team is answering diligence questions.
Enter diligence with fewer surprises
Some issues will remain when diligence begins. Preparation gives sponsors and management a clear view of those issues, who owns them, and what is being done. That allows the CIO to explain the company's position and the decisions behind it.